As I sit here, petting my kitten, listening to Dark Side of the Moon, watching The Wizard of Oz, and pondering the nature of love and kindness, it occurs to me that a lot of attention is payed to the conflict in RPG’s, while very little is often paid to negotiation. While I enjoy a good beatdown as much as the average capitalist pig, I think that the peace negotiations process has been undervalued in role playing game source materials. After all, how many times, do guys like me meet Slobodon Milosovic and say, “Man, I understand that you’re upset, but all that genocide was a bitch move. Let’s see if we can’t work something out here twixt you and the Croats. BTW, we’re probably going to kill you for war crimes.” Never, huh? I can’t even think of something appropriate to say here, probably because I don’t watch enough C-SPAN to bullshit that well. Sure, you can just use a skill check, or even a series of skill checks, but then it is just a dice game and there’s no story or any adequate outcome. This is too bad, because mechanics can solve this problem with negotiating peace treaties. The problem with negotiating peace treaties is most of us don’t know, offhand, how much more or less difficult it is to negotiate terms of surrender of various degrees of extravagance. We can take a reasonable guess and maybe get close, but can’t really say one way or another.
But your character might. So here’s a homeopathic remedy for the peace-negotiation RP blues, that ought to be flexible and supplementable enough to work for any GM’s educated guesses.
The Nnaccs(Nnaccs is Not a Character but a Country System)
Country stats in the Nnaccs include the four baselines Territorialness, Nationalism, Economic Commitment, and Diplomatic Prowess, and Flexibility, a universal stat that affects the four baselines. Baselines represent the country’s emphasis on this aspect of its national identity, and how much it is willing to sacrifice on that point without a check. These scores range from 0-30(Either choose as GM, or as a party if the characters are the rulers, or roll 5d6) and take a great deal of difficulty to change. Flexibility represents the country’s willingness to alter its stance based on current factors, like losses in the war, public unrest, or the death of a leader. Flexibility ranges from 0 to -20 and can be chosen from the following rubric.
| Public Discontent |
Economic Loss |
Military Loss |
Political Urgency |
| Public unrest is nonexistent, support for the war is universal. |
-0 |
Economic losses are nonexistent, or have not even neared depletion of surplus. |
-0 |
Military victory is well within the grasp of the regular armed forces, who have good morale and supplies. |
-0 |
Political needs are not demanding in any way. |
-0 |
| Public unrest is not widespread and is largely handled by propaganda and other nonviolent means. |
-1 |
Economic surplus is nearly depleted and manufacturing losses are cause for concern. |
-1 |
Military victory can be attained by the regular armed forces with relative ease, but morale is low on some fronts. |
-1 |
The country finds itself needing supplies from a country allied with a country it is at war with. |
-1 |
| Pubic unrest is not widespread, but is handled in part by incarceration which is considered inhumane. |
-2 |
Economic surplus has been depleted and people are worried about the effects they see beginning. |
-2 |
Military victory can be attained using a few reservists or a limited conscription process, but morale is low on many fronts. |
-2 |
The country needs to reopen trade with a country it is at war with, or political support for the war is dwindling. |
-2 |
| Public unrest is widespread, and is handled primarily via incarceration which is considered inhumane. Violence may also be used to discourage protest. |
-3 |
Economic surplus has been completely depleted and people are forced to ration any scarce supplies. |
-3 |
Military victory will not be attained without widespread conscription, and morale is low on many fronts, and weapon-related supplies are dwindling. |
-3 |
The country needs to reopen trade with many of its current enemies, or political leaders are plotting a coup d’etat. |
-3 |
| Public unrest is a serious issue for the government and handled at the discretion of military police, who use any force they wish without audit. |
-4 |
Goods are scarce and people are actually becoming ill and dying from malnutrition or lack of medical facilities. |
-4 |
Military victory will not be attained without widespread conscription, morale is extremely low, and weapon-related supplies are difficult to find. |
-4 |
The country needs to reopen trade with many of its current enemies and political leaders planning a coup d’etat |
-4 |
| Public unrest is almost universal, and domestic forces cannot keep discontents at bay. |
-5 |
People are regularly dying due to lack of adequate living conditions. |
-5 |
Military victory cannot be attained, weapons are limited to primitive types, and morale is dismal. |
-5 |
The country is desperate for supplies only its enemies can provide, and political leaders have attempted a coup d’etat. |
-5 |
After describing each country in this way, a peace treaty is drawn up by the country with the higher flexibility score, tagging each term with whichever baseline stat most effects it. The terms are rated from 1-5 on severity, and the severity is then added to the baseline stat, and for each term there is a roll of -1×1d6, minus flexibility. The total is subtracted from the baseline stat + term severity, and if the result is less than 0, the term is accepted without argument. If the result is greater than 0, the negotiation process begins, where each team role plays the concessions and tradeoffs that can be agreed upon, and the roll is made again based on the new severity, minus 1.
So, peace negotiation mechanics work in this order
-
Describe the countries in terms of its baseline stats and compute flexibility.
-
The country with the higher flexibility designs a peace treaty, and the GM rates the terms on severity and the baseline stat they rely on.
-
Add the baseline stat and the severity, subtract flexibility and subtract 1d6.
-
If the result of #3 is less than 0, the term is automatically accepted.
-
If the result of #3 is greater than 0, the term is negotiated in role-play.
-
Repeat steps #3 and #4 or #5 with the new severity and a -1 modifier.
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